TITLE: WINTER IN MADRID

AUTHOR: C J Sansom

DATE PUBLISHED: 2006

DATE READ: February 2007

NOTES: Well crafted story of three school fellows and how their lives collide and separate. Bernie, a communist travels to Spain and later joins International Brigade – injured and captured and not released after the end of the war. Harry – middle of the road academic who is enlisted in 1940 by Intelligence to work in Spain. He had been shell shocked at Dunkirk. In Spain he is asked to find out what Sandy Forsyth is up to – seems to be into shady business deals.

Meanwhile Bernie’s girlfriend Barbara has moved in with Sandy, believing Bernie to be dead. Barbara finds out that Bernie is alive and sets about rescuing him from a prison camp near Cuenca.

Paints a very vivid picture of Spain in the Civil War and the years following. Deals well with the complex issues and varying political complexities of the time. Plot is complex but the machinations of the British Embassy are all too believable.

This author is new to me - but I shall look out for his other work.